Adiba Nelson

Then we had that talk that made my eye twitch: the budget talk.

I’m about to bring you some pint-sized deliciousness, and a whole lot of fierce! Meet Ify Ufele, or just Ify if you’re cool like that.

Apparently, we Black women have a smell. And it’s been bottled and labeled and is being offered up for consumption by Sunflower Cosmetics. Yep. You read that right. There is a legitimate company out there who is selling a perfume called “Black Women.” If my girlfriend hadn’t posted a picture of it in a local shop, I would have called her a damn liar.

I don't love this. I don't love any part of it. I don't love the fact that a life is in my hands every moment of every day.

My job is to make you feel — whether it’s lust, pride, anger, guilt, joy, sadness — whatever it is you feel, I want you to feel it.

It is made up of women that I've known since I was 8, and women I met last week.

Being a body positive/body acceptance activist means that regardless of WHAT shape my body takes at any given point and time in my life, I love it. I am kind to it. I remember that it has the right to love and adoration, first from myself, and then from my man. I remember that all bodies, those bigger than and those smaller than mine, are entitled to the same, and they are no better or worse than my own.

Shit. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t get so sassy right now.

Let me tell you something, ladies. There are a million people in this world ready to tear you down at any given moment, for reasons they know, and reasons they don’t know. They will all but sell the blood of their firstborn child to make sure you know that they think you ain’t shit.

"I will peer relentlessly into every cop car I pass with a young black man in it, stretching my neck to make sure that it’s not my son who’s been arrested for driving while black, walking while black, or breathing while black. I will hold my breath while listening to every news report of another black man that has been arrested, beaten, killed, and made an example of."